3.0 out of 5 stars
Definitely for the Legal Minded, March 5, 2010
This review is from: Justice Thurgood Marshall, Crusader for Liberalism: His Judicial Biography (1908-1993) (Hardcover)
Randall Brand's biography of Thurgood Marshall is mostly what it is advertised to be, a judicial biography that covers Marshall's career, legal arguments, and legal decisions. He gives some quick background before jumping into Marshall's early work with the NAACP, where he quickly rose to become their top attorney and legal strategist. Marshall was one of the architects of court cases that helped enforce desegregation of the military, desegregated higher education, improved access to the polls, and, most famously, desegregated public schools.
In the early 1960s, Marshall was appointed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. His time on that court was fairly short. President Johnson brought him back after just a few years to advocacy, appointing him as the first and so far only African American Solicitor General of the United States. Again, that was not a long term job. In 1967, Johnson elevated Marshall to the United States Supreme Court as the first African-American justice.
Marshall's legal arguments both as an advocate and a jurist are developed in great detail, with multiple excerpts direct from Marshall's briefs and opinions. In some cases, Brand even gives useful legal background so non-lawyers can quickly grasp the issues at hand in a case.
Although Brand has great respect for Marshall in his writing, he still betrays what I view as an interesting twist on Marshall's life. His most important work came prior to his appointment to government service. His time as a judge and even as Solicitor General was much less notable. As a Supreme Court justice, based on Brand's writing and the view of other Supreme Court schools such as Henry Abraham, Marshall was not a thought leader. Though he was a consistent vote for the liberal wing of the court, he did not develop many of the arguments that the liberal wing fought for in various areas of the law. Marshall will always be rightly remembered as the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, but I hope those who can only recall a bit about him remember his important work before the court.
One warning about the 2001 edition of the book, Brand has a strange epilogue regarding Clarence Thomas. Brand regards the Thomas seat, which Marshall previously held, as the African-American seat on the court. This is not so unusual. For a time there was a Catholic seat, somewhat ironic given that five of the current nine are Catholics. There was also a Jewish seat and maybe it is worth pointing out there are now two Jewish Justices. Brand gives a quick summary of the Thomas confirmation and Thomas' judicial views, criticizing Thomas' foes heavily and promoting Thomas. Brand's view appears to be that the African-American community should not only look for a liberal African-American Justice, but a Justice of any political stripe. It is not an unconventional view, but after reading 290 pages about a liberal lawyer and justice, it is slightly jarring to read such a full throated defense of a conservative Justice who would like to see a great deal of what Marshall supported undone. To be clear, I am not suggesting Thomas wants to see schools segregated again, but he definitely has different views of how the Supreme Court should decides cases related to that issue and many others Marshall argued about and wrote on.
But the Thomas coda aside, the book is exactly what it advertises but should be read by those interesting in Marshall's legal arguments, not just a general interest in his life.
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